Slouching Towards Bethlehem
by The Lady Wolfshead
Summary: PostHBPHBP spoilers. The trio are on the trail of Voldemort and the Death Eaters, with many trials to face before the final encounter. Eventual slash.


It's been a long while since I wrote fanfic. I thought it was high time I started up again.

A few warnings. This will eventually feature SLASH. If the very thought squicks you out, please read no further. I will not tolerate flames along the lines of 'ew that's so wrong you're sick' et cetera because you were WARNED.

Also, this may, at times, get slightly dark and possibly a little bit gory. Please do not fear for the author's mental wellbeing. Professional help is being sought.

Final warning: Contains SPOILERS for Half Blood Prince.

That's all I can think of… I think I've covered myself… if you don't like it don't whinge, just please try to explain constructively why you don't like it.

Disclaimer: I, the Lady Wolfshead, do solemnly swear that all characters, locations, creatures and certain events are not mine but are instead the work of the wonderful Joanne Kathleen Rowling. I'm just stealing them through sheer boredom. Please don't sue me, I'm a civil servant, and I have no money to pay you.

A noise no louder than a whisper was nevertheless enough to rouse the young man sleeping in an old, musty, four-poster bed. He peered blearily around the room and slowly reached for his glasses on the bedside table. He put them on and tried to see anything in the shadows cast by the full moon outside his bedroom window. Was someone in the room? Or was it just the wind rustling the leaves outside? Or even just the Hippogriff snorting in his sleep in the next room?

No, wait… Someone was in the room, just beyond the shadows cast by the horrible, cavernous, Gothic wardrobe that seemed to refuse to leave the room. He could have sworn he heard a curse that was hurriedly shushed by a muffled giggle. He slowly reached up under his pillow for his wand and almost swore as he realised it had dropped down behind the bedstead. There was nothing for it, then. He focussed with his mind as hard as he could in the direction of the sound and thought, _Stupefy_!

A grunt told him that he had found his mark and he rose from the bed and padded over to the light switch. The light flicked on to reveal absolutely nothing by the wardrobe, but for one who had grown up in the Wizarding world it was not entirely unexpected. He crept forwards until his toes touched something solid, reached down, and whisked an Invisibility Cloak aside to reveal two identical red-haired, freckled men.

"Oh, it's you two," he muttered, freeing them with a wave of his wand, but not before removing a large, leather-bound grimoire from one of the twins' unresisting fingers.

"Hi, Harry!" said Fred Weasley brightly, helping up his brother who was grumbling. "I see the wandless magic's really coming along."

"What are you two doing sneaking around in my room?" demanded Harry as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Nothing!" said George innocently. "We were taking a night-time wander and must have lost our way. You know how big this house is…" Harry snorted. The Weasleys had been staying at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, for six weeks now and it was hardly their first visit in any case. If they didn't know every inch of the house with their eyes shut by now he'd eat Buckbeak.

"Then what were you doing with my journal?" asked Harry, indicating the grimoire.

"Oh, is that your journal?" asked Fred, feigning surprise. "We didn't know. We just fancied some light bedtime reading…"

"Why don't I believe you?" asked Harry with a tired sigh, rubbing at his lightning bolt-shaped scar. He shot the twins a mock-glare. "Maybe because I've known you for seven years now and when you look innocent it means that you're up to something."

"Don't know what you're talking about, mate," said Fred airily, slipping his arm around Harry's shoulders.

Harry shrugged off his friend and stalked to the window. The light from the full moon was casting long, dark shadows across the street, shadows in which anything could be hiding. There was a slight green hue on the horizon where the Dark Mark could be seen twinkling away in the distance, a sight that was becoming more and more frequent in recent times. Harry shivered. The Death Eaters had killed again, and Voldemort was gaining yet more power…

It had been eighteen months since Harry and Dumbledore had retrieved the fake Horcrux from the cave. Eighteen months since the Death Eaters' assault on Hogwarts, which had led to the death of the Headmaster and the subsequent closure of the school. The school had now reopened but Harry Potter, along with his best friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, had not returned. Instead they spent their time working with the remnants of the Order of the Phoenix, a band of witches and wizards dedicated to defeating Voldemort, to find out the whereabouts of the Horcruxes, objects in which Voldemort had secreted a part of his soul.

There were six in total; Slytherin's ring and Riddle's diary had definitely been destroyed. A locket that Harry, along with Dumbledore, had found on the ill-fated night that Dumbledore had died had turned out to be a fake, a mysterious person known only by his initials of R.A.B. having stolen the original to destroy it. So that was two Horcruxes definitely destroyed and one presumably destroyed. A goblet once belonging to Helga Hufflepuff was thought to be one, as well as an as-yet unknown relic of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's; Voldemort had appeared to be collecting items that had belonged to the four Founders of Hogwarts to store his soul in. And Dumbledore had thought that Voldemort's snake, Nagini, was the sixth and final Horcrux. It was just a matter of finding all these items and then destroying them before going after Voldemort, the most powerful and dangerous wizard of the age, and killing him. Simple, really.

A lot had happened in the last eighteen months. Although their primary goal was to locate and destroy the Horcruxes, Harry, Ron and Hermione had found a lot of their time taken up with stopping Death Eater attacks. Harry was also studying for his Auror training; the fact that he had not yet taken his NEWTs had proved to be a bit of a stumbling block, and the fact that he didn't exactly get on with Rufus Scrimgeour, the Ministerfor Magic, didn't help either, but he was determined. They had been lucky so far with very few casualties from the Order, although Harry now had a few more scars to go with his more famous one.

It wasn't all doom and gloom, however; Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour had got married and were now expecting their first child, and Ron and Hermione had finally put their bickering to one side for long enough to admit that they liked each other, and had been out on a few tentative dates in the last couple of weeks. Harry smiled at the thought. It had been obvious, really. In a way he was slightly jealous, but reason held sway over matters of the heart. He had no time for relationships, he was far too busy, and the fewer people who knew what he was doing the better. He had been reluctant even to involve Ron and Hermione for fear that they might be targeted by the Death Eaters as a means of getting to him, but they were stubborn and he was glad of their company.

He became aware that George was talking to him and forced himself to listen.

"What?"

"What is it you're up to?" asked George. "You're always sneaking off at odd hours and no-one ever knows what is it you're doing. Now, Fred and I are nosey by nature but even we haven't been able to find out anything. What's going on?"

"I can't tell you," said Harry automatically.

"You've told Ron and Hermione. They won't tell us anything either. Ron won't even tell his own brothers!" added Fred moodily.

"Because we can't tell you," said Harry stubbornly. "Believe me, this is dangerous…"

"We don't mind a bit of danger!" exclaimed Fred.

"Caused a fair bit in our time," added George.

"But nothing like this," Harry insisted. "This is serious stuff, and, no offence, you two are hardly serious people."

"None taken, mate," said Fred, clapping Harry on the shoulder. "That's still not a good enough reason, though."

"What do you think, bro?" asked George.

"I think it's high time we used the Device."

"What's the Device?" asked Harry, suddenly worried. Fred and George's inventions were notorious. Fred produced a device that looked like a bundle of feathers and tapped it with his wand. It scuttled towards Harry on spindly legs and when it reached him long, pincer like arms extended from the sides and pinned him to the bed, while the feathers tickled his feet. He yelled and tried to swear at the twins in between great gales of laughter and tried to squirm away, but the pincers held him fast.

"What the bloody hell… Oh, it's you two." The twins grinned at their youngest brother, Ron, as he stooped to enter the doorway. "I thought someone was being murdered. Leave it off, yeah? Some of us are trying to sleep." Ron was well over six feet tall, and his pyjama bottoms were several inches too short. He scowled at his brothers as they started sniggering over this fact, and watched as Harry was tickled mercilessly by the Device. "So this is what you've been working on?"

"Yep. We call it the Truth Extractor Device, or TED for short. If someone's hiding a secret from you TED will tickle you to within an inch of your life until you 'fess up."

"Doesn't appear to be working, though," remarked Ron with a grin as Harry continued to swear bloody murder.

"Yeah well, there's no accounting for stubbornness," sighed Fred, tapping TED with his wand. The legs and arms retracted again and Harry sank gratefully back onto the bed.

"Thanks for that. I needed the laugh," he muttered, massaging his ribs. "I'm still not going to tell you though."

"Are you two after information again?" asked Ron incredulously. "Look, we can't tell you, just drop it."

"Well we would, but sadly dropping it is not in our nature," said George. "Besides, you might need our help."

"We're doing fine," muttered Ron. "Seriously…"

"Seriously, it's too dangerous. If it makes you feel any better I didn't even want Ron and Hermione doing this. Voldemort could use any of you to get information about me and what I'm up to, and I don't want to risk it. Sorry," added Harry. "And as it's well known that you lot are like my family, it's likely that they will come after you and you can't guarantee that you won't get caught."

"Fair enough. If you do decide to spill the beans though, remember where we are." Fred and George left the room, whispering together conspiratorially. Harry smiled and shook his head. It was good to know that, no matter how dark the times, some things never changed.

"They never change, do they?" asked Ron, flopping down on Harry's bed. "Always trying to find out what doesn't concern them."

"You sound like your mother," remarked Harry, nudging his best friend. Ron groaned in mock horror and buried his head in his hands.

"Hex me, hex me now!"

"No time for that." The boys looked up to see Hermione standing in the doorway, clutching a dressing gown to her and yawning. "Lupin's back, and he's got some news."


End file.
